Nature's Ways: The old and the new

Friday

Dec 29, 2017 at 3:01 AMJan 1, 2018 at 5:07 PM

By Mary Richmond

Every year at this time, people grudgingly promise to be better.

They toss off their regrets, their half-finished projects and hope for a new, improved chance in the new year. This striving to be different, to be more than we perceive we are, is a human idea, however, not one shared by the rest of nature.

You don’t see foxes or coyotes making lists of resolutions. I did see a coyote standing in the middle of a field the other day, watching the world go by. I think it was contemplating finding lunch, however, not a way to make a better low-fat mouse salad using field grasses.

Unlike many of us heading to the gym, coyotes are rarely overweight. They don’t worry much about their household budgets, either. They simply face each day as another chance to survive and thrive.

They don’t hide in their dens bemoaning the mouse that got away yesterday. They just go out and begin a search for their next meal.

The trees stand guard along the edges of the path I walk, their branches now bare and stark against a gray sky. They worry not about getting new leaves. They worry not at all, even when woodpeckers are banging away at them.

They stand through windy days and freezing nights. They stand through rainstorms, snowstorms and the ravages of ice storms and nor’easters as well. All the while, inside them, new life begins to stir.

As winter begins it is easy to look at the fallen grasses and leaves as nature’s trash, but nature knows these things are what keeps the circle of life spinning round.

Seed heads stand a little more crooked now, but they also have their place in the landscape. In the wild the old and the dead nourish and bring forth the new and the living.

Old leaves become compost for new earth while dead flower heads supply seeds for new growth in the next season as well as food for small birds and animals all winter long.

Along the shore the sand is littered with old, broken shells and scraggly feathers. Molted crab shells, fish bones, all sorts of abandoned things that were once filled with life. It is a sobering moment to stand amongst all these things that have been shed and lost.

Some represent lives that have passed on, but others represent new lives beginning. Life is not stagnant. Life moves on through us. Even when our bodies are tossed back to ashes and dust, they serve the beginnings of new life, new hope.

For some reason I have been witness to a lot of predation these past few weeks. Perhaps it is simply that with the trees and shrubs stripped bare it is easier to see. I have come across the remains of rabbits and birds, even a skunk and a deer.

It is at times like these that I yearn for spring, when the world seems full of babies and new life. It will come soon enough but in the meantime, I find myself planting micro green seeds in pots on my windowsill, so I can watch something grow.

As one year ends and another begins I find myself contemplating the state of our world, our country. This past year has felt like a year of mourning for me and for many of my friends in conservation work, humanitarian work and education.

It has also been a year of new awakenings, I think, and that is what I am going to celebrate as the new year begins.

Like the new plants pushing their way up through frozen soil, we can rise to find the sun. We can. We will. We must. Happy New Year, everyone.